I'd go for Widdop and Tomkins in the halves purely because I doubt an over-cautious approach will serve us well. That also gives Hardaker, who's never been less than effective all season season, the full back berth.

Quote tigertot="tigertot"Matty Smith is way off international class, but with the squad I'm not sure of the alternatives. Tomkins & Widdop have more flair but possibly less structure. Ratchford & Widdop? I'm not convinced HB is Ratchford's best position. Whitehead & Ferres for SR, Farrell is not big enough.'" Whitehead has missed 5X the number of tackles that Farrell has, and Farrell makes more clean breaks than either Whitehead or Ferres. Whitehead is in the top 10 for tackles missed, can we really afford to have someone so poor defensively playing against Aus or NZ? Being bigger doesn't mean being better. www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/1927 www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/2228 www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/10147

Quote tigertot="tigertot"Matty Smith is way off international class, but with the squad I'm not sure of the alternatives. Tomkins & Widdop have more flair but possibly less structure. Ratchford & Widdop? I'm not convinced HB is Ratchford's best position. Whitehead & Ferres for SR, Farrell is not big enough.'" Whitehead has missed 5X the number of tackles that Farrell has, and Farrell makes more clean breaks than either Whitehead or Ferres. Whitehead is in the top 10 for tackles missed, can we really afford to have someone so poor defensively playing against Aus or NZ? Being bigger doesn't mean being better. www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/1927 www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/2228 www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/10147

Widdop was in the running for the Dally M medal (finished 5 or 6th if memmory serves), he has to be the first choice in the halves.

Quote Rogues Gallery="Rogues Gallery"Whitehead has missed 5X the number of tackles that Farrell has, and Farrell makes more clean breaks than either Whitehead or Ferres. Whitehead is in the top 10 for tackles missed, can we really afford to have someone so poor defensively playing against Aus or NZ? Being bigger doesn't mean being better. www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/1927 www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/2228 www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/10147'" Here is why he's a gamble. He also produces more phenomenal offloads and wonder plays. I dunno whether it's worth it. I'd give it a go though. I think the clean breaks could be a little deceptive - he does tend to run out wide, and the ferocity of Wigan's forward play up the middle does tend to suck defences in and create space out wide. That being pretty much the game plan. I daresay I will be accused of Leeds bias (unfairly as there are very few Leeds players I'd pick this year) but I think Ablett has been better than either Farrell or Ferres this year. Dunno whether that's what the stats say. Farrell won't let anyone down. Question is do we take that or gamble on something more? I'm not sure there's a right or wrong answer to that.

Quote Rogues Gallery="Rogues Gallery"Whitehead has missed 5X the number of tackles that Farrell has, and Farrell makes more clean breaks than either Whitehead or Ferres. Whitehead is in the top 10 for tackles missed, can we really afford to have someone so poor defensively playing against Aus or NZ? Being bigger doesn't mean being better. www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/1927 www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/2228 www.superleague.co.uk/matchday/player/10147'" Here is why he's a gamble. He also produces more phenomenal offloads and wonder plays. I dunno whether it's worth it. I'd give it a go though. I think the clean breaks could be a little deceptive - he does tend to run out wide, and the ferocity of Wigan's forward play up the middle does tend to suck defences in and create space out wide. That being pretty much the game plan. I daresay I will be accused of Leeds bias (unfairly as there are very few Leeds players I'd pick this year) but I think Ablett has been better than either Farrell or Ferres this year. Dunno whether that's what the stats say. Farrell won't let anyone down. Question is do we take that or gamble on something more? I'm not sure there's a right or wrong answer to that.

Widdop and Smith in the halves for me. Widdop’s played very well for the Dragons this year until a bit of a slump toward the last few weeks.



Tomkins defending in the line would be a defensive nightmare.



Backrow is a conundrum. I’d have Farrell in there for his workrate and he misses very few tackles. He needs to be alongside with a bit of an attacking threat. Ferres didn’t look out of place last year but hasn’t looked great for Hudders. J Tomkins hasn’t been back long enough for me to see if he’s up to it but he does offer some pace and versatility. Whitehead is great with ball in hand but still a defensive liability.



I’d go for



Tomkins

Charnley

Watkins

Shenton

Hall

Widdop

Smith

G,Burgess

Hodgson

Graham

J,Tomkins

Farrell

O’Loughlin



Clark

T,Burgess

Ferres

Hill

Smith will pass, which he does quite well, & kick, which he does less well. That's it, he doesn't create & he doesn't support breaks, as he lacks the pace. If Tomkins is up to it at HB he should start with Widdop. Do a job is polite for average. I accept that, if Brough is Scottish, there's not much else.

Farrell is a brilliant club player but not big enough at international. How many world class players of his size can you remember? We are not going to win the games by trying not to lose them.

I'd have Ferres in ahead of Joel Tomkins based upon the great showing he made at last year's world cup and Shenton over Sarginson but otherwise Schofield's 17 looks pretty good.

Tomkins' defence in the line worries me less than his defence at fullback. DCE and Cronk are deadly accurate with both high and cross-field kicks, neither of which Tomkins deals with particularly well.

Both Cronk and Cherry-Evans seem to have so much time when kicking it seems putting pressure on the kicker in the NRL isn't such a high priority. Perhaps if we could exert some pressure on either of these two we might blunt their effectiveness

Yep. Agree with that.

Yep agree with that. I think kick pressure is something we do more of over here. Whether we'll have the energy to do it is another matter, but I think it could be a way of giving ourselves a good chance of beating them.